It's Beginning To Look Like

Overheating on the left wing and increased drag is what brought Columbia down. There's been a lot of wild speculation about the cause of the crash but it's looking more and more like the insulation that broke off and hit the orbiter during the boost phase is the culprit.

I've been keeping up with events as much as possible even though I had to pull an all nighter at work last Saturday and Sunday. I'm still recovering from staying awake for a day and a half. As I put on years, it takes longer and longer to recuperate from these weekend shindigs.

I read Lileks every day and his Monday bleat is, as usual, superb. I was a little surprised to see him begin with helium balloons but he quickly segued into his usual superb style, blasting the naysayers who think robots should take over space travel. Here's part of it:

Instapundit is my homepage, and that’s where I read the news: the shuttle is overdue. That could only have meant one thing. It’s not an Amtrak train. It’s not a car stuck in traffic. It was gone and they were dead. I turned on the TV, and called my friend the Giant Swede; he saw caller ID and knew exactly what I was calling about. We talked about it without saying anything, because there’s nothing to say but you have to say it all anyway.

The rest of the day I listened to the radio. NPR had an interview with one of those people who think we should not send people into space, but rely entirely on robots. As I pulled into the parking lot at the mall he casually asked “what can a man do on Mars that a robot cannot?”

PLANT A FUCKING FLAG ON THE PLANET, I shouted at the radio. Pardon my language. But. On a day when seven brave people died while fulfilling their brightest ambitions, this was the wrong day to suggest we all stay tethered to the dirt until the sun grows cold. Are we less than the men who left safe harbors and shouldered through cold oceans? After all, they sailed into the void; we can look up at the night sky and point at where we want to go. There: that bright white orb. We’re going. There: that red coal burning on the horizon. We’re going. And we’re not sending smart toys on our behalf - we’re sending human beings, and one of them will put his boot on the sand and bring the number of worlds we’ve visited to three. And when he plants the flag he will use flesh and sinew and blood and bone to drive it into the ground. His heartbeat will hammer in his ears; his mind will spin a kaleidoscopic medley of all the things he’d thought he’d think at this moment, and he'll grin: I had it wrong. I had no idea what it would truly be like. He’d imagined this moment as oddly private; he'd thought of himself, the red land, the flag in his hand, and he heard music, as though the moment would be fully scored when it happened. But there isn't any music; there's the sound of his breath and the thrum of his pulse. It seems like everyone who ever lived is standing behind him at the other end of a vast dark auditorium, waiting for the flag to stand on the ground of Mars. Then he will say something. He might stumble on a word or two, because he’s only human.

But look what humans have done. Again.

After that, there's nothing left to say.